The sun ejected a powerful solar flare on Valentine's day – the first so-called "X-class" flare in four years. Flares are explosions on the sun that release a burst of radiation across a range of wavelengths and come in three types; X-class flares are the most powerful.

A coronal mass ejection of charged particles accompanied the explosion but the storm did not end up disabling satellites because its magnetic field was aligned with Earth's, an orientation that prevented the particles from breaking through Earth's protective magnetic shield.